Solar-powered safety light installed in Des Plaines

A flashing light has been installed at the crosswalk of Fifth Avenue and Algonquin Road.

January 21, 2013|By Gail-Tzipporah Saunders, Special to the Tribune

Students cross at the new flashing light near Algonquin Road and Fifth Avenue. (Gail-Tzipporah Saunders, Special to the Tribune)

To encourage children to walk to four schools in Des Plaines and arrive safely, a solar-powered flashing light has been installed at the crosswalk of Fifth Avenue and Algonquin Road.

The LED light was donated by the Active Transportation Alliance working with School District 62, and the City of Des Plaines. It is across from Algonquin Middle School and near Forest Early Learning Center, Forest Elementary School and Maine West High School.

"It's a modern version of the flashing yellow light," said Derek Peebles, city engineer. "They draw attention a lot better than the old single, incandescent bulb."

It's part of a push to get children to move more in light of statistics showing that the number of children who walked to school in 2009 was 13 percent, compared to almost half in 1965, according to Barbara Cornew, suburban outreach manager of the Active Transportation Alliance. The organization promotes safe walking, biking and transportation as an alternative to a sedentary lifestyle.

Additionally, over 20 percent of all children in Illinois are overweight. "A lot of kids don't get 60 minutes of physical activity per week," Cornew said.

The major reasons kids have stopped walking to school are the weather, safety at intersections and crossings, traffic speed and distance, according to an alliance survey. So when Cornew won the light at a conference, she donated it to Des Plaines, noting the alliance's strong working relationship with the city over the past two years.

"Des Plaines adopted a school travel plan for all the individual school locations," she said. "They put together maps for each of the school locations, so kids could walk or bike to school."

The light helps in that effort, Peebles said. "It increases safety [because] drivers are alerted that someone's trying to cross the street," he said.